Do you wonder what the secret sauce is that holds happy families together?

What do they do right, and how can you learn to make your family happier?

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” said the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy in his book Anna Karenina.

Was he right? Do all happy families have certain things in common?

In this article I’ll share four practices that can draw your family closer and make everyone in your home happier, summarized from more than 200 ideas found in The Secrets of Happy Families, by Bruce Feiler.

Why Is a Happy Family Important?

Over the last fifty years, families have changed drastically. We have blended families, adoptive families, divorced families, single-parent families, two-parent families, gay-parent families, family members with different faiths and some with none at all.

But no matter what kind of family you belong to, your family is key to your overall happiness and well-being.